Before I give you an update on City Council’s work, I just wanted to take a moment to thank our emergency responders, road crews and communications team who worked through the blizzard the last weekend in April. Our team worked hard in terrible conditions and did an excellent job. If you haven’t already, I encourage you to sign up for emergency notifications from the City at www.chestermere.ca/notifyme or follow us on social media for up to date information during emergencies.
As for City Council work, I hope that many of you saw our announcement that we have adopted a brand-new strategic vision: to make Chestermere truly Amazing. We want to pursue amazing neighbourhoods, amazing partnerships, amazing opportunities, amazing relationships and an amazing quality of life. How we achieve each of those pillars will vary from year to year but you deserve our best and we are eager to work with you to make Chestermere the most amazing community in Canada. For the remainder of this term, our priorities include pursuing economic investment, seniors’ housing and utility stability.
CUI is always top of mind and I am pleased to let you know that we are in the final stages of reviewing the future of our recycling and organics collection. However, regardless of who picks up the trash, we do know that the City of Calgary landfill charges us more when we send them garbage containing prohibited items. If you need a reminder of what goes where, please check our website. We ask that everyone contributes to keeping our costs down by doing proper sorting.
Boating season is just around the corner and our team is focusing on lake safety this summer. We heard from you during the Lake Management Plan consultations this winter that there are substantial concerns about safety on the lake. As a result, we are taking steps to improve signage, educate boaters and ramp up enforcement. If you are planning to head out on the lake this summer, be sure to visit chestermere.ca/boats for all the updated information.
Finally, I am very happy to tell you about a brand-new project from our Streetscapes Committee: they have organized a new banner program to honour veterans. The banners will be hung in Anniversary Park in November and will display the photo and service details of the honouree. Any resident is welcome to submit an application to honour any veteran. You can find more information at www.chestermere.ca/veteransbanner or learn more by visiting City Hall.
As always, I invite you to stay connected with us by dropping by one of our monthly Coffee with Council events or sending us an email. We’d be happy to connect anytime.
Mayor Chalmers
P.S. You will be receiving an updated version of our community newsletter in your mailbox this week. We’ve redesigned it to make it easier to find out what’s going on around the community and we hope you enjoy it.